Community Gardens in Dallas

[justabob]

I ran across this Observer(Schutze) piece at Yahoo early this morning and thought some of y'all might be interested. The bulk of the article is about the struggles of getting community gardens approved by the City. It is an interesting and frustrating read, but apparently there is going to be some movement soon on the issue:

<snip>
For his own part, even Paul Dyer says City Hall may one day come around to it. In an e-mail to the Observer, Dyer said, "We have been gathering data from community garden programs around the country.

"We will be preparing a briefing for the Park and Recreation Board in the next six weeks to develop a policy and potential sites around the city. Hopefully, this will create, if needed, the justification for a budget request in the budget process for the coming year. If well thought out, the community gardens partnerships and educational benefits could cover parks, vacant city parcels, school sites, community colleges, county property, undeveloped private property, etc."

That's not a firm yes. Nor is it a firm no. So what is it? It's Dallas City Hall. The best advice the experienced community gardeners can offer for dealing with City Hall?

Get around it.

http://www.dallasobserver.com/2009-10-08/news/dallas-has-a-dirty-secret-it-acts-as-if-supports-the-community-gardens-movement-but-that-s-not-the-real-truth/1

[sonias]

1. Community Gardens are important especially in this economy

Lots of people depend on the fresh produce that these gardens provide.

Here are a couple of links for some Austin groups
http://www.sustainablefoodcenter.org/

Austin Coalition of Community Gardens
http://communitygardensaustin.org/


Good luck to your in Dallas. Keep pressing your council to support the programs.

Sonia

[justabob]

2. yes, agreed

I used to live very near to the garden on Fitzhugh that is mentioned in the article. That was my first introduction to their existence. I am no gardener, but this is so obviously good, for multiple reasons, I can't believe there would be so many problems. Ah well. Hopefully the City will fix the zoning/land use problem that the article points to as the major hurdle. Seems like a pretty simple thing to work out. We shall see.

[onestepforward]

3. Community gardens are a great idea.

Texas as a whole is lacking in this area and I hope that Dallas can work out the problems and get some gardens up and running. Hopefully this idea will take off in other cities too.

[kentauros]

4. I used to volunteer with Urban Harvest in Houston.

While I'm unemployed, I should get involved again. There are quite a few community gardens around town, though not nearly enough for the population we have.

Here's Urban Harvest's site: http://www.urbanharvest.org/index.html


By the way, I got a similar non-answer when I suggested Houston's Parks Dept. put hike & bike trails in all the large pipeline and power right-of-ways that bisect the city. I don't think they fully understood what I was proposing, so I got a form reply. Idjits.

[onestepforward]

5. I need to get out there.

It's about 30 miles away from me, but there is nothing much closer. Have you been to the one on Tuesdays in Rice University's parking lot?